Australian may have stayed home more as household spending defied a drop in services spending to rise 0.5% in June.
The seasonally-adjusted month-on-month lift was led by furnishings and household equipment (2.0%), clothing and footwear (1.6%) and food (1.5%), and followed a 1.0% increase in May and a flat result in April, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS).
“People buying more goods drove the overall rise in household spending in June,” ABS Head of Business Statistics Robert Ewing said in a media release.
Goods spending was 1.3% higher as households outlayed more on food, new vehicles, and electronics while spending on services fell 0.5% after two months of growth.
Alcoholic beverages and tobacco (-2.4%), hotels, cafes and restaurants (-0.8%) and health (-0.3%) were the only categories that fell, suggesting consumers remained indoors more than in May.
But Australians demonstrated their liking for going out with services spending rising 6.6% over 12 months as recreation and culture (7.9%), food (7.5%) and health (7.2%) showed the largest jumps in a period that household spending rose 4.8%.
The services spending increase outstripped the 3.4% rise in goods spending.
The result exceeded economists’ forecasts of a flat to 0.1% month‑on‑month lift and 3–4% year‑on‑year growth.
Household spending grew in seven of the eight states and territories with the Northern Territory (1.3%) showing the largest percentage rise and Western Australia (-0.3%) the only jurisdiction where spending fell.
